


Afterboom

by rahrahel



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Consent, Eventual Smut, F/M, Het, Kissing, Love, Oral Sex, Post-Rogue One, Rogue One Spoilers, Sex, Some Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9086152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahrahel/pseuds/rahrahel
Summary: "Boom. It had been a big boom. A lot of debris. A lot of light. A lot of darkness. Then, it ended. Somehow, they hadn't." (An I-am-in-denial-about-the-ending-of-Rogue-One-and-writing-fan-fiction-to-cope Fan Fiction. Not immediately earning the M rating, but gets there around chapter 6.)





	1. Chapter One

Boom.

It had been a big boom. A lot of debris. A lot of light. A lot of darkness.

Then, it ended. Somehow, they hadn’t.

Jyn and Cassian were much more distant now than they had been what felt like seconds ago but in truth could have been any length of time (in actuality, it had been nearly half a day). Jyn awoke first, her eyes covered by brown hair that was partly matted by blood. Breathing felt heavy, but it came with little pain. She reached out each of her limbs in turn. Both of her arms felt sore but responded, unbroken. Right leg felt similarly acceptably sore, but the left didn’t respond from the knee down. Jyn adjusted herself to sit up (which she could still do with only minor difficulty) and saw the problem – her calf was at an odd angle, clearly broken, and her knee was significantly displaced.

Cassian didn’t check himself so gingerly when he awoke. He rapidly rushed to rise, a habit from all his years as a spy, assassin, saboteur in places he wasn’t supposed to be. This action yielded a sharp cry, as he didn't get past sitting up without realizing that at least three of his ribs had to be broken. He uselessly pulled his legs towards himself, but both remained sorely bruised from his fall in the archives.

Cassian’s sharp cry drew Jyn’s attention though, and without a care for her broken leg, she tried to stand up to run over to her companion several meters away on the destroyed beach. Of course, she collapsed immediately before proceeding to crawl and claw her way over. Cassian heard the grunts of Jyn’s effort, which swiftly prompted him to exert a similar effort in her direction.

Nearly a full groan-filled minute later, the two had arms thrown tightly around one another just as they had when facing their seemingly inevitable doom upon the Death Star’s firing on the Imperial compound.

"Ow!" Jyn’s grip on Cassian had upset his broken ribs.

"Oh! Sorry." She loosened her grip, but her arms still remained around Cassian’s torso and back. Still stunned at their survival, she somehow couldn’t bare to let go of Cassian now that she knew they’d both made it through the excruciatingly devastating battle they'd initiated.

They’d initiated it. It was a thought that seemed to shoot through both Jyn and Cassian at the same time, and that thought caused the two injured parties to release one another, as if their joyful survival was a betrayal to all the lives they had led to the slaughter.

If Jyn and Cassian had survived, perhaps there were more. As they both glanced behind them to see the remains of the central tower and several upended landing pads, they both had to come to the conclusion that it was unlikely. Most others had been in range of all the debris and must have been buried under it all who knew how long ago. There was a slim chance others had been as far away as the two of them had been, but it was highly unlikely. After all, the wave of ocean and beach that had struck them had clearly done its own damage; in addition to the broken bones each had, there were cuts and bruises and blood trails all over each of them. Both of their clothes had rips and tears throughout, and Cassian’s shirtfront was torn so deeply that his chest and all its bruises were clearly visible.

Neither knew what to say now. They’d hardly known what to say before, preferring to clutch onto the bond they’d built through pure touch. Now, such a grip not only hurt their physical bodies, but also their souls.

Yes, Jyn and Cassian had done what was necessary for the Rebellion. They had done all that they possibly could have done to get the Death Star plans to the rebels. From the surface of rubble-ridden Scarif, though, it was hard to know whether that work had been successful in the least, and it was nigh impossible to know if there was a working comm that could communicate with anyone in the rebellion anywhere on the planet. Their friends’ sacrifices may have been in vain. Their own suffering and guilt may be in vain.

Cassian turned to look back at Jyn first, tearing his eyes away from the corpse of a facility the Death Star had left behind. He had mildly more experience turning his back on disasters, and usually they were of his own doing. Instinctively, he reached forward to move Jyn’s bloody hair from her face in order to see whether the damage beneath was superficial or more sinister.

His touch stirred Jyn’s reverie. Cassian’s warm hand on her face turned her attention back to the pilot, and she offered a tiny smile of thanks for his concern.

"I don’t think it’s anything serious," said Cassian, roving his hand over Jyn’s forehead, methodically searching for any proof to the contrary.

"You’ve got some scrapes too," Jyn said as she reached for his face with both hands. After a moment of searching, "All clear," she deduced.

Cassian’s face relaxed. Her hands felt so welcome on his skin, and her careful touch reinforced his feelings for her that had been filling him since the moment they’d met.

Cassian’s hand slid from Jyn’s face onto her collar bone, and Jyn’s hands fell to rest on Cassian’s shoulders. They sat like that, silent, for a few minutes. Each was working their way through a burdensome combination of emotions: jubilee at surviving (together), excitement at the possibility of their mission being a success, optimism that they might not be alone, worry that they might not be alone, guilt over leading others to their deaths, and hollowness at the possibility of their mission being a failure.

Eventually, their respective pragmatism shone through, and Jyn’s eyes focused once more on Cassian’s injured (and still handsome) visage. "What now?"

It wasn’t a big picture question. They were injured, stranded on an island full of debris and corpses, and unsure of what the political atmosphere was above their heads in the rest of the galaxy.

"Food. Water. Medicine," Cassian recited. "We’ll have to search the wreckage."

Jyn’s look said enough, but she still asked, "And how will we get anywhere in the state either of us is in?"

Cassian paused, and his eyes roamed around his settings, searching as he often did for a way out of whatever catastrophe he ended up in. Nothing stood out as useful at first; enormous pieces of ships buried under piles of sand stuck out at odd angles. Smaller pieces, wires, and various miscellaneous scrap dotted around the larger mounds. Sticking out of a smaller mound only some meters away was a pipe of roughly one meter long.

Finally, something useful. "That," Cassian said, pointing at the pipe. "That can serve as a crutch for you, and you can make it closer to the ruins, the tower-" the word ruins made the devastation around them maybe too real, "and I'm sure there's some supplies to be found. The blast wasn’t direct; they’re just probably buried."

"I don’t feel comfortable leaving you behind," Jyn said firmly, in a way that Cassian had already come to know well.

"I’m useless right now," Cassian insisted, returning her stubbornness with some of his own. "We both need rest, but first we need supplies before we’re too weak to do anything at all, and you’re the only one who has a working leg right now."

Jyn held her tongue. She knew he was right, and she didn’t really want to disagree, but she also knew they were both in vulnerable positions right now. She was worried that Cassian had more severe injuries between his fall and the explosion that weren’t obviously apparent. She was worried that, if she left him alone too long, he’d die of that hypothetical, unseen injury.

"Let me have a better look at you first, okay?"

Cassian raised his brows and grinned. "Really? Now?"

"I want to make sure you don’t have any internal bleeding," Jyn said, rolling her eyes but grinning too.

"Be my guest." Cassian removed what remained of his shirt with some difficulty. Jyn helped him pull it off and took stock of the bruising underneath. Her medical knowledge was limited, but from seeing a whole host of injuries that Saw’s company often returned with, she knew how to recognize the treatable from the dire. She leaned forward to look at Cassian’s back and sides and had him lie down so she could get a better look at his chest. The sun had set long ago on Scarif, and though the starlight was vibrant due to the lack of light pollution from this island at least, it was still hard to see Cassian’s chest, especially as he hunched over in pain.

After a couple minutes of careful searching, relief washed over her; Jyn could tell that Cassian wasn’t in immediate danger. The bruising seemed to indicate that though the ribs were broken, they hadn’t punctured any of his organs. She could leave him alone, and he wouldn't die on her. Good.

"Ok," Jyn agreed. "I’ll see how far I can get and what I can find."


	2. Chapter Two

Jyn had been gone for… hours? Cassian’s chrometer was broken, so his only indication of the passing time was the stars in the sky adjusting their position as the beach of the planet he lay on soared through the universe. Worries flowed through Cassian as to what could have happened to her. Debris could shift and collapse on her. Any enemies (who may or may not have survived) could have attacked her. She could have gotten too weak due to blood loss or malnourishment or her injuries and have collapsed.

He’d heard her hobble away after she’d struggled to attain the pipe she’d use as a crutch and shifted herself uneasily onto her feet. He’d watched her go, wishing he could help but knowing he was completely and utterly useless right now.

Breathing still hurt, but there was nothing else he could do right now but keep breathing. The idea of giving up breathing was impossible, even when Cassian faced all the reasons he should be dead. Everyone else was dead. Everyone else was dead because he’d convinced them to go to Scarif. He’d done so many bad things in the name of the Alliance… he knew he didn’t deserve to keep breathing.

Knowing that Jyn was alive was enough to keep him breathing though. He needed to stay alive to make sure she stayed alive. He had to stay alive to help her through whatever she must also be going through now. He had gotten used to this kind of guilt, though perhaps not on this scale, but how must she have been processing it?

So, Cassian kept breathing. He inhaled, ribs aching, chest aching, lungs aching, and then he exhaled. He did it again and again. He sprawled out, body spent beyond any formerly known exhaustion, but Jyn could return any time, and that anticipation of her eventual return kept him awake. He couldn’t sleep. Even as his lids grew heavier and his breathing grew deeper, Cassian fought the urge to sleep. Maybe he couldn’t do anything in his condition, but the idea of leaving her completely alone right now was unthinkable. If she shouted, he could hear her over the light sounds of the water flowing in and out on the beach and nothing else on the lifeless island.

The sounds of the waves rolling in and out, though, were too rhythmic and soothing, and eventually Cassian did fall asleep.

He was woken by the feel of Jyn’s hands on him. Cassian had always been a light sleeper – not a bad habit for a spy – and Jyn’s attempts to clean and bandage his chest while he remained asleep had failed.

“If you’re going to be awake while I do this, then don’t squirm too much, okay?” Jyn was in business-mode. Cassian sat up so that she could better tend to him. As he did, he saw that she had already tended to her own injuries and seemed to have fashioned some kind of splint for her broken leg, which would allow her to hobble it along without such a strong need for her impromptu crutch. Her knee was bruised, but he could see that it had been readjusted to its proper position.

While Jyn quietly concentrated on scrubbing any dirt and blood away and wrapping Cassian’s torso up so as to encourage his ribs to reform in the right position, he took notice of his somewhat changed surroundings.

The sun had risen, but not very high in the sky, so it couldn’t have been too long since he had fallen asleep. She hadn’t brought back much, but what she had was very encouraging. Cassian spotted several canteens and packets of food rations as well as four battered med-kits. The largest of the med-kits lay open beside the pair of rogues, and Jyn was removing its contents and placing them around Cassian’s chest as he returned his attention to her.

She had tied her hair back and cleaned it of blood and sand and dust. It was still wet; she must have dipped it into the surrounding ocean to clean it pretty recently. Her torn clothes had been discarded, and she was wearing a mishmash of nicely pressed Imperial clothes. The slacks had the left leg ripped off, though, so that her splint could fit around an otherwise mostly bare leg. A few bandages covered other exposed pieces of skin, including some of her forehead. Cassian suspected more bandages were hidden beneath her new garments, and he had to stop himself there as his mind was wandering from the practical to the… less practical.

“Once I’m done with your chest, we should get you cleaned up too.” Jyn’s eyes stayed concentrated on bandaging Cassian. “I grabbed a few other clothes. They might be a little big, but they’ll be better than the rags you’ve got on now.”

Cassian looked down at his trousers, which, in the brighter light of day, looked far more ragged than he’d realized before. His shirt wasn’t even in sight anymore, likely discarded by Jyn once she had gotten back.

“Thanks,” he said, feeling rather pathetic. He didn’t really know what else to say. He could already sense the wall she had put up; not an unfamiliar sensation when it came to Jyn – the woman was more walls than emotion, really, and so was Cassian – but those walls seemed to have all fallen between them in what could have been their last moments. Now, Jyn had thrown some new walls up, and Cassian couldn’t blame her in the least.

He refrained from saying anything more, and she remained quiet as well as she finished binding his chest. It felt tighter once she was done, but not as pained. Jyn rummaged through the large med-kit and, unable to find what she was looking for, turned instead to another. She found her prey there, and extracted several small, white pills encased in packaging.

“These should make breathing easier,” said Jyn, as she held out a hand containing three of the pills.

Cassian took them from her, but he didn’t let go of her hand. Her eyes were unfocused and steely, avoiding his surprisingly open and sympathetic ones.

“Jyn,” he said, barely more than a determined whisper of her name. The tone was all too reminiscent of how Chirrut prayed to the Force, with his similarly quiet determination.

“Not now,” Jyn replied firmly. “Not right now.”

Her gaze focused, and Cassian recognized the barely bridled agony behind her captivating, hazel green irises. He let go of her hand, and she didn’t whip it away but instead revoked it slowly. He threw the pills into his mouth, and swallowed them dry. Jyn’s focus was on the ocean, seemingly so calm now after having reacted so violently to the Death Star’s blast nearly a day ago.

“I’ll go wash up then,” said Cassian, gesturing towards the waves several meters away.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, thank you,” Cassian said, nodding a small smile. He didn’t want her to exert herself even more. It was obvious the food rations hadn’t been touched yet, though it was possible she’d drank some water from the canteens.

He crawled his way over towards the water, trying not to get sand in his fresh bandages. Whether it was that the painkillers acted really quickly or that the bandages had positioned his chest better or that his nap had helped, but Cassian moved with less pain that he had before, and breathing felt easier too. Once he was at the shore, he removed his boots and torn trousers to reveal his mostly unscathed though heavily bruised legs beneath. He splashed them regardless, which felt soothing. Despite all the chaos the ocean had wrecked hours before, it was now playing innocent, sending in sun-warmed wave after wave, gently washing small pieces of debris away as they got caught in the tide. Now, Cassian bathed his injured legs and arms before splashing his face with the water. Then, the water ran more brown and red from the splotches of blood and dirt as they ran from his hair and scratched face.

“Here,” came Jyn’s voice, as she held out the clean Imperial uniform she’d scavenged. Cassian had heard her approach – it was hard not to when she was stumbling along with a broken leg and crutch – and realized that he’d left the new clothes behind, deducing her reason for joining him at the tide.

With only a small nod of thanks and no words, Cassian took the clothes from her and awkwardly put them on. Jyn offered no help, but Cassian managed with not immense difficulty. She hadn't gotten new boots, so Cassian put those he’d been wearing before back on. They weren’t in too rough of shape anyway, though they didn’t quite match the pristine nature of the slightly over-sized uniform he’d just put on.

Jyn still stood, balanced on her “good” leg, but leaning heavily on her pipe crutch, very near to Cassian’s position as he half-sat, half-leaned back on his elbows. They remained in those positions, silent, the sun warming their wet hair as the tide withdrew. Several minutes passed.

“You should rest,” Cassian said, breaking the silence. He didn’t mind the quiet, but there was a tension here that he felt he needed to break. “You’ve exerted a lot more energy, and if nothing has come after us so far then…” he trailed off, not wanting to go too far down that route. It was all too clear that they were the only two survivors on Scarif. Jyn certainly didn’t need reminding of that.

Jyn didn’t respond at first, eyes still on the ocean in the direction of where the initial strike from the Death Star had hit. Eventually, she answered, “Okay.”

Cassian and Jyn slowly moved further from the coast, closer to the supplies Jyn had scavenged some meters further inland. Once they’d returned to their “camp” (for lack of a better word), Jyn settled herself back down on the sand.

“You should eat something,” she said. She was lying on her side, back to Cassian as he arranged himself and his beaten body in the most comfortable position possible.

“Have you eaten?” he countered.

She didn’t respond. Cassian could almost imagine her defiantly saying, like some kind of teenage brat, _I’m not hungry_. But Jyn didn’t say as much, preferring to let her silence speak for itself.

As Cassian ripped into one of the rations packs and downed the tasteless contents – likely fare low level Imperial pilots often consumed on their runs so as to simply survive from base to base, much like Cassian was used to on his own missions – he watched Jyn’s body rise and fall. He could tell she hadn’t yet fallen asleep.

The food devoured in an instant, Cassian found himself exhausted once again; his previous sleep had been too short for what his body needed. He looked at Jyn before him, wishing he could transfer his exhaustion to her so that she could get what was obviously much-needed sleep for her own body’s injuries… and the pain that was clearly echoing in her mind.

Cassian knew she had to hear him as he scooted himself over, but she didn’t flinch or react as he gingerly put an arm around her and positioned himself to lie beside her. In fact, as he held her, he felt her own arms hold his, and heard the smallest of voices he’d ever heard from her say, “Thank you.”


	3. Chapter Three

It was light out when Jyn awoke, but something in her body told her that it wasn’t the same day she had fallen asleep on the planet anymore. It had taken her some time to fall asleep; she could tell that Cassian had fallen asleep beside her some indeterminably long time before she’d managed to sleep herself, but he was still asleep for the moment, his deep breaths soothing a spot on the back of her neck. It was the only part of her entire body or mind that felt any sense of peace.

Jyn’s mind had been the reason she couldn’t sleep before. She was used to loss in her life after her mother’s death and her father’s capture when she was still so young. When Saw abandoned her as a teenager, she was still somehow able to feel the devastation despite what she had thought were thick walls she’d built up around her heart. Then, upon being recruited by the Rebellion, meeting K2 and Cassian and Chirrut and Baze and Bodhi…

When she’d been scavenging, she couldn’t stop herself from returning to the platform where they’d first landed. It was a mess. If Bodhi Rook’s body was anywhere in the vicinity, she couldn’t have found it. She didn’t really want to.

She hadn’t been so lucky when she spotted pieces of Baze and Chirrut scattered all around the master switch. She’d vomited upon the sight, but since there was so little in her stomach it was mostly bile.

She remembered hearing K2’s final words. The droid she’d assume could outlive them all – after all, _he_ could survive in space – had likely been one of the first to go. He hadn’t died in the final blast. Then again, it was hard to know what it was that had killed any of the rest of Jyn’s newly found and newly dead friends.

The images haunted her. Her role in their existence haunted her. She knew she’d done the right thing – if she hadn’t gone to Scarif when she had, if the rest of them hadn’t been there to fight, if the Rebel fleet hadn’t arrived and disabled the shield, then there was no chance of defeating the Empire. Even so, the price felt too high, and it was weighing heavily on Jyn Erso’s already beaten body and soul.

There was stirring beside her; Cassian must’ve woken. She felt his arms tighten around her, and his warmth embarrassingly made Jyn feel tears welling in her eyes. _Crying is the stupidest thing you could do right now_ , she chastised herself. It wasn’t even that she was embarrassed to be vulnerable in front of Cassian (though, for most of their time together that would have been a defining factor). Rather, Jyn didn’t want to acknowledge for herself just how much all of this was affecting her. After all, she had been surrounded by death and emptiness before. This shouldn’t be new. This shouldn’t hurt so much.

“Feeling it means you’re still human,” a voice said, interrupting Jyn’s thoughts. Cassian’s voice. With surprising dexterity for her current condition, Jyn flipped herself over onto her other side so that she was now facing the pilot. She didn’t respond, just looked at him opaquely.

“Even I’m feeling it,” he said, more quietly. His eyes, which had caught hers the moment she’d turned to face him fell now. Jyn could tell what he was thinking. He had to have been used to not feeling all the destruction he’d sown in the name of the Rebellion. He likely didn’t even feel like he deserved to be living. She certainly didn’t feel like she deserved to be one of the only survivors from this mission. She certainly didn’t feel human. She felt like a monster.

“Which means you’re still human too,” she said, somehow managing to find it in her to comfort him even as she couldn’t comfort herself.

Cassian’s lips were upon hers in no time, his kiss a gentle, reverent kind of forceful. Jyn felt him thanking her for her affirmation, for caring about him, for giving him a reason to keep breathing, and she was thanking him for _his_ affirmation, for caring about _her_ , for giving _her_ a reason to keep breathing. She was so glad that he was still alive, so much gladder than she was about her own survival.

Cassian’s arms were already wrapped around Jyn, and her hands reached up to hold his face to her, the coarseness of his face feeling so perfectly right. Somehow, all the pain in her body seemed to dissipate as her eyes shut and her lips brushed against Cassian’s again and again and again, each kiss attempting to heal one of the numerous wounds her companion had from not only this journey but also the many other missions he’d undertaken in his life.

Likewise, Jyn felt her own broken spirit healing as the kiss deepened. Her hands removed themselves from Cassian’s rough face and turned their attention to his soft, sun-dried hair. Grasping at it between her fingers, she felt Cassian’s hands clasp together near the small of her back, sending a pleasant chill up her spine. Their tongues were entangled in one another now, and they breathed into each other the breath of life, reminding each other that yes, they were alive, and they were together, and they would be whole one day.

Eventually, the aches of their bodies overtook the passionate moment, and they reluctantly loosened their grip on one another. Jyn lowered her head into Cassian’s chest, feeling his heavy heartbeat. Cassian gently kissed the top of her head and ran one hand through the many hairs that had fallen loose of her ponytail while they’d slept earlier.

If that beach hadn’t been littered with the corpses of buildings and people, it could’ve been a paradise.


	4. Chapter Four

The way time was measured in the galaxy was different from world to world, but Scarif’s day length was not far from the universally accepted time measurement most of the galaxy accepted as the norm. Thus, it wasn’t difficult to determine that it took almost twenty days after the attack for Jyn and Cassian to be near full health again.

There was little for either of them to do but heal. Once Cassian’s legs had healed enough for him to walk (four days), he traveled with Jyn around the ruins of the island to scavenge. At first, they made sure to find enough rations and medicine, but those supplies weren’t too difficult to attain from the ruins of the many cargo ships around the planet, as most had at least basic supplies. They’d even managed to find clothes that fit Cassian more comfortably than the over-sized uniform Jyn had originally found for him.

Once those basic necessities were covered, the more pertinent question was how they would eventually leave the planet. Scarif didn’t have a population outside of the island that the Empire had used, and, even if it did, they would’ve needed a way to travel across the planet’s enormous oceans. As it stood, they were more likely to find a way off planet or at least to communicate with off planet locations (though, ideally, the Alliance) using something from the remains of the Imperial base.

Neither Jyn nor Cassian had yet to bring up what they would do next or whether they should return to the Alliance or not. Jyn had little to no loyalty to the organization, and Cassian had already given so much of himself to the Rebel Alliance that he wasn’t sure he had anything left he could give… or was willing to give.

As their bodies healed, Jyn and Cassian didn’t pursue more romantic gestures than being physically near one another at all possible times, a habit that had formed early in their relationship, well before either had fully understood the extent of their feelings for one another. The kiss from their third day of survival wasn’t forgotten, but they always had more immediate concerns. The demons of their souls were on the back burner once they were able to pursue pragmatic goals once again.

Communication. Transport. Departure.

Jyn was more interested in transportation, not wanting to communicate with anyone else in the galaxy; she didn’t have anyone left in the galaxy she cared about. They’d scoured the whole island by day twenty (they still spent most of their days sleeping, all the better to heal their wounds and to postpone the inevitable discussion of what would come next, really). No ships were functional. All communications had been knocked out by the blast. Jyn and Cassian may have survived the Death Star’s attack on the base, but it was looking more and more unlikely they would get off world.

Given enough time, Cassian knew enough to construct a functional craft out of all the pieces left behind from the formerly functional crafts. That could take months, though, and if an easier solution existed, the pair was determined to find it first. In the meantime, that search, along with other matters, drew their attention.

On day ten, Jyn had been unable to convince Cassian not to explore near the master switch where he witnessed the same horrendous image of their friends that she’d seen earlier on. In better health, the two of them proceeded to honor their fallen brethren by making a funeral pyre and placing as much as they could find of the remains of their former companions. Fittingly, it was sunset when Jyn lit the pile of brush, and the flames danced across Chirrut and Baze’s remains as their bodies merged with the universe much as their spirits had become one with the Force.

There were other corpses to be found, mostly Imperial storm troopers that they left where they found them, but also several other Rebel Alliance fighters. Eventually, making a funeral pyre for each became too much, and a wrench of guilt stuck in them as Jyn and Cassian instead gathered all the bodies together for a mass burning. It was tradition to burn the dead, but it somehow didn’t feel right.

During these impromptu funerals, Jyn and Cassian stared at the victims before them, eyes unwavering as they soaked in the smoke and heat and guilt of their roles in the demise of those before them. Each held the other’s hand tightly, both to comfort the other and to seek comfort for themselves. No words were exchanged. There was nothing to say.

Cassian still fell asleep more easily than Jyn did. He was often sound asleep, his breath warming her neck as he lay, arms around her, body beside her, as they always slept now, but she would be wide awake. Her thoughts were filled with memories of every kind of pain she’d experienced or exacted on others. She remembered her mother’s murder and her father’s capture. She remembered Saw’s abandonment. She remembered prison. She remembered Saw’s death. She remembered her father’s death. She remembered giving K2 the blaster and him locking the door and sacrificing himself for them. She remembered Cassian’s fall and when Krennic’s blaster was pointing at her and she was ready to die. She remembered that she didn’t die. She remembered seeing the blast coming for her and Cassian as they kneeled on the beach. She was ready to die then too.

Was she still ready to die?

Jyn didn’t have an answer to that question. She didn’t know whether Cassian was thinking along the same lines. She knew he was struggling to rationalize his continued existence as much as she was, but they both spent so much of their day on other subjects and missions that the existential devastation they were trying to process was still, well, unprocessed.

Eventually, Jyn fell asleep each time. Sometimes she awoke first; sometimes Cassian did. When she would awake first, she’d see him brooding in the same way she did each night. In a misguided effort to protect each other though, they didn’t allow themselves to share these worries with each other again. Not yet, at least.

Jyn planned to let Cassian back into her thoughts. She didn’t want to keep them from him; she just didn’t quite know what her own thoughts were yet. If she didn’t know what she wanted to say, she didn’t like to say anything. She certainly didn’t know what she wanted to say about anything that had happened since they’d first arrived on Scarif.

But by the twentieth day, Cassian’s ribs were mostly healed. Jyn’s leg was still a bit unsteady, but she could walk in the improved splint she had built without any kind of crutch. Most of their bruises had faded, and their cuts had closed. The increased amount of sleep and the medicine they had found had worked together to shorten their healing periods pretty significantly.

Cassian certainly was used to getting right into the next disaster even when he was nursing a serious injury. This kind of vacation (albeit a somewhat nightmarish vacation) was a heretofore-unknown luxury to the rebel spy. Jyn too was used to brushing off anything that happened to her body. The fact that she wasn’t itching to get to the next thing was indicative of just how psychologically stumped she was.

Eventually…

“I don’t want to go back,” Jyn said, quietly and firmly.

Cassian looked over at her. They’d been sitting around the makeshift campsite they’d improved upon over the past several days. There was a fire pit in the center, perfect for cooking fish that had started swimming nearby the island once again and warming them as the nights got mildly cooler; though the planet never got too cold, Scarif’s coolest season was approaching. They’d arranged makeshift seats from pieces of debris. They were eating a dinner that was comprised of both fish and some of the tasteless food rations that still made up the majority of their meals. The sun had recently set, and they’d been sitting and eating quietly ever since.

“I can’t go back,” Jyn continued, refusing to let her voice waver.

Silence resumed for some seconds before,

“I can’t either.”

Jyn hadn’t been looking at Cassian as she spoke, but now her eyes met his. “I don’t know if I want to know whether we succeeded or not,” Jyn continued, more confident knowing that she was speaking with an understanding audience. “I can’t decide if all this-“ she gestured around her “-was worth it if we did. And I know it wasn’t if we didn’t.”

“I feel the same,” Cassian said. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to care.”

Jyn felt guilty at that. “I _want_ to care. I can’t right now.”

Cassian didn’t seem to feel that same guilt as she did. “You and I don’t have to feel the same way. I’m out. I’m not going back. Sure, the rebellion is important, but they need better men than me.

“I always used to think that my personal tragedy made me a better soldier for the Alliance,” he continued, pouring his mind out to Jyn in a way he never quite had in words before. She listened intently. “I had all the motivation in the world and no loved ones to live for. I was smart and learned all the skills I could. I’d take the missions others weren’t comfortable with. I could do what others couldn’t. I could kill anyone, and I would do it because it was for the only thing I cared about: the rebellion.”

His eyes never wavered from meeting hers. He wasn’t darker or scarier with this explanation. In fact, Jyn saw him as more raw and vulnerable than he had been in all their time together.

“I don’t care about it anymore, though. I know the Empire is evil and that it must be stopped, but I don’t want to give myself to stopping it anymore. I don’t have anything left to offer.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Jyn said, matter-of-factly. “You _could_ do exactly what you used to do.”

Even before he responded, she knew that was wrong. “No, I can’t,” Cassian said, almost a little harshly. “I couldn’t kill your father could I? I didn’t have anyone to disappoint before.”

Jyn pursed her lips a little. “You know that I understand why you’ve done what you’ve done, Cassian. I don’t begrudge you for anything you’ve done.”

“To be fair, you don’t know everything I’ve done.”

“It doesn’t take much to guess.” Jyn smiled.

Cassian couldn’t help himself, and he smiled back at her. “Regardless, I care about my own soul now. Before, I was willing to sacrifice my own humanity.”

Against her own wishes, Jyn couldn’t help herself but follow the logical path, “Then you _are_ the better person the Alliance deserves, aren’t you?”

Cassian laughed. “Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t want to find out. I’m out. Shouldn’t you be happy about that? Don’t you want to leave them behind too?”

Jyn’s smile faded a little. “I wanted to do what was right.”

“And now?”

Jyn’s smile faded further, and her eyes fell from Cassian’s. “I still want to do what’s right. I don’t know what that is, though.”

“Neither do I.”

Neither Jyn nor Cassian knew what to say next. The conversation had produced an edict – whenever they did get off world, they wouldn’t be going to Yavin 4, certainly not right away. Regardless, they were still going to get off world sooner or later.

It happened to turn out to be sooner.


	5. Chapter Five

Rather than wake up naturally as Cassian had gotten used to doing for the past few weeks, the next morning he was awoken by the unmistakable sound of a ship breaking through the atmosphere not too far off in the distance. Cassian’s eyes shot open, and he wasted no time in lightly shaking Jyn awake. She rolled over to look at him quizzically, and he pointed up into the sky where a rather shoddy looking vessel was heading to land on the other side of the island. It was certainly not an Imperial ship, and it looked nothing like anything Cassian had ever seen the Alliance fly. He had a pretty good idea what it was though:

 

“Scavengers,” he whispered.

 

Cassian really should’ve expected scavengers to show up sooner or later. Regardless of what the Alliance was up to or whether it had survived past the assault on Scarif, news of the attack was likely to spread eventually. There was no doubt that scavengers would eventually come to the Imperial base looking for useful scraps or Imperial secrets. The former had mostly been claimed by Jyn and Cassian, and the latter was buried under all the rubble of the tower if any of the secrets had indeed survived the tower’s collapse.

 

It was unlikely that any scavengers who came to the planet would be friendly to the Empire, but it was hard to predict what neutral parties in the ongoing conflict would do. Many pirates, scavengers, or smugglers who seemed to be chafing under Imperial control would still quickly turn over any rebel they came across to the nearest storm trooper for whatever leverage or reward they could get.

 

Both Jyn and Cassian knew that this was a fortunate turn of events overall, though. Rather than spend countless hours and days and probably months scavenging amongst the ruins in an attempt to find all the necessary parts to build a new vessel, they could stowaway on this ship instead.

 

Words didn’t need to be exchanged between the two of them. Instead, their silence made it easier to hear the not-too-distant roar of the engines as the scavenger ship landed.

 

Cassian and Jyn had gathered packs in recent history to better help them carry useful salvage or bring minor supplies on their explorations around the island. It took a few short moments for them to pack up the provisions they had at their campsite as well as a pair of fully functional blasters that they’d recovered in preparation for whatever journey might lie ahead of them.

 

They heard the engines shut down and what sounded like the ship’s ramp lower. Over the only other sounds of the island – the flowing and ebbing tide – murmurs of voices could be heard. The language and its contents couldn’t be made out from the distance Jyn and Cassian were at, but they had silently decided to skip any kind of formality and instead take the stealthy way out.

 

That route would be a little difficult with Jyn’s leg still in a splint. While her new and improved splint made moving easier for her, she was still a bit noisy when walking on any surface aside from the sand. Fortunately, the island had plenty of sand for the pair to stick to, so they would simply have to do just that.

 

The scavengers must have assumed nobody had survived at the outpost because they were making no attempt to be quiet in their own exploration. As Cassian and Jyn grew closer to the voices, it became easier to make out what was being said, especially since it was in Basic.

 

“-kind of Imperial archives. Not sure if anything’s left, but I’m sure we could get a lot of credits if we find the right thing.”

 

“And how will we know what the right thing is?”

 

“As if I know. We’ll just have to take everything we can.”

 

Most of the conversation wasn’t very interesting between the two scavengers. What it did tell Jyn and Cassian, as they moved closer and closer to the new arrivals, was that there were likely more on board the ship. It wasn’t a large ship, but large enough that it was likely to have a crew of half a dozen or so, especially since scavenger teams often needed to employ people of a few different specialties. If these scavengers were really going to try to get under the rubble of the tower to dig through the archives, they were definitely going to need to employ some explosives.

 

It was likely that the scavenger team would stick around the planet for a few days. There wasn’t too much territory to cover (as Jyn and Cassian knew all too well from their own explorations), but if these scavengers had come prepared, they might actually have some stuff to look through.

 

By the time the scavengers had begun to talk about what equipment they should unload, Cassian and Jyn were close enough to see, through the ruin of fallen trees and scattered ship and platform pieces, the scavenging vessel that had landed on another fairly clear patch of beach. The two scavengers they’d been overhearing were both human and of medium height. One had darker skin and was muscular, and bald. The other looked a bit older; though physically buff like his companion, he had grey hair that fell to his fair-skinned shoulders. They both had the physical countenance of having authority; it was likely that one was captain and the other first mate. The way they casually laughed with one another suggested a lengthy partnership.

 

Cassian signaled for Jyn to fall back a little ways with him; he didn’t think there was much more to learn from staying so close right now. Once they were a few more meters away, she leaned into his ear to whisper.

 

“We need to straighten out our story if they find us.”

 

Cassian nodded his agreement. But what story could they possibly provide? He knew Jyn’s thinking was right; they needed to be on the same page to avoid any missteps. The problem was that neither an Imperial nor a rebel would appeal to most parties, and certainly not the kind that undertook morally and legally ambiguous work like scavenging Imperial ruins.

 

“For now, let’s stick to Imperial,” Cassian decided. If they were Imperials and the scavengers were anti-Imperial, the worst that could happen is that they’d end up in a firefight. If they were rebels and the scavengers decided to ransom them, they could end up in Imperial control, facing endless, mind-numbing torture. The Alliance may have been able to spring Jyn from Imperial prison once before, but that was when the Alliance had its full force. Now, neither Cassian nor Jyn had any idea what state the Alliance was in or whether they could even expect help from them. It was easy to assume that, if the Alliance still existed, both Jyn and Cassian had been written off as casualties. Until they understood the scavengers’ sensibilities better, it was easier to be a more blatant enemy.

 

Jyn and Cassian stayed close by to the scavenger ship as the rest of the crew departed. From what they’d overheard, they learned quite a bit. Both were quite familiar with how openly people talked when they didn't think anyone was listening in.

 

The bald man was indeed the captain of the vessel. His name was Saeed and her name was _Swiftfoot_. The older man was his first mate and seemed to have done quite a bit in raising Saeed as a pirate and scavenger; his name was Fierye. The rest of the crew was made up of a rather foul-mouthed Twi'lek pilot named Frapp, a Wookiee named Wassafer who served as the demolitions expert, human brothers named Harleuk and Van who sounded as if they were more recent additions hired for their sharpshooting abilities, and a rather soft-spoken Zabrak named Xell whose specialty seemed to lie in some unspoken of former work for the Empire.

 

If Cassian and Jyn had been hoping to hear news about what had happened to the Alliance and the Death Star following their mission – and whether it had been a success or not – these scavengers didn't have any answers. They seemed to have a pretty good idea of what had happened on Scarif – “Fucking idiot rebels thought they could take on the Empire, and it’s the damned Empire that decided to scorch the bloody earth!” as Frapp had put it – but whatever had happened to the “fucking idiot rebels” or “the damned Empire” since the mission seemed to either be inconsequential or unknown thus far.

 

The scavengers spent most of their first day trekking back and forth in smaller groups between their ship and the central rubble of the Citadel. They seemed to be developing a game plan for how to access whatever was left beneath the ruins. They’d basically agreed that explosives were the way to go after ruling out the frustratingly slow process of using the _Swiftfoot_ to drag piece by piece away. By mid-afternoon, they’d moved on to deciding which explosives would move the most debris without damaging anything beneath.

 

Cassian and Jyn had found themselves growing less interested in what the scavenging party had to say as time went on. Any secrets the group had didn’t seem to be all that interesting. The new human brothers found Frapp’s foul mouth bothersome, and Wassaff wasn’t too keen on working with a former Imperial, but Saeed seemed to command everyone’s respect in a way that they didn’t fight with one another openly, instead sniping behind each others’ backs when the others were away exploring their potential pot of gold.

 

Almost out of habit of how physically intimate they’d become, Cassian and Jyn, sitting side by side, angled slightly towards each other but focused also on the group they could slightly make out through the downed brush around them, had kept their hands in constant contact since assuming their recon position. Something about the way Jyn’s hand felt, brushing her fingers against Cassian’s and providing the smallest addition of warmth into his body, kept Cassian focused on developing their escape plan. He could easily guess that perhaps his touch was doing the same for him.

 

The one problem being that, as the conversations and interactions they were observing got duller and less insightful, the electrifying feelings being exchanged through their hands became more overwhelmingly distracting. Cassian, at the very least, could feel his heart pounding ever so slightly faster, his stomach churning itself in a desire he’d gotten around Jyn before, often in the more heated arguments they’d had.

 

By the look in Jyn’s eyes when Cassian caught sight of her looking right into his, he could tell she was thinking along the same lines. The timing was terrible though; there was no way they could quench this thirst right here, right now, not with a crew of seven scavengers barely a hundred meters away on the beach.

 

But eventually Cassian’s mind was fully gone from developing any kind of escape plan. He was fully focused on how soft Jyn’s neck looked, how he wanted to reach out a hand and hold it. He wanted to brush her hair back out of her face so he could see every inch of it better. Her full lips were slightly parted, as they often were when she thought, and all Cassian could think of doing was suckling on each at a time, savoring her flavor. He vividly remembered their kiss from seemingly so long ago, and how he’d been too distracted to want to recreate it. Now, he was too distracted by wanting to recreate it to do anything else.

 

His position was shifting unconsciously more towards her, and Jyn’s body was responding in kind. Mere moments later, their foreheads touching and their breathing heavy, Cassian and Jyn were fighting every urge in their respective bodies. One of his hands was on the small of her back, the other cradling her neck and toying with her hair. Her hands were each firmly placed on his hips. The warmth emanating between them was nearly unbearable, but they couldn’t do this now, regardless of how much each of their bodies was screaming for it.

 

“I can’t fucking take this anymore.”

 

“Fine, Frapp,” came the resigned voice of the first mate, Fierye. “Let’s call it a night and get back to this in the morning then.”

 

The rest of the crew mumbled amongst themselves a general agreement to those terms. One by one, they boarded their ship, soon after leaving Cassian and Jyn to be the only ones left on the island beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fully-fledged smut will be arriving shortly!!


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's smuttin' time, fellow nerds

Making it all the way back to their campsite seemed an impossible prospect, especially as, once the landing ramp of the _Swiftfoot_ had shut, Cassian and Jyn’s lips collided with one another, sucking in each others’ deep breaths and satisfied moans. Somehow, though, they knew they had to get back; it wouldn’t be safe to stay here through the night. Their bodies reluctantly broke apart as the pair made their way across the beach perimeter of the island, but every dozen meters or so they were back in each other’s embrace, grabbing at one another like they’d never held one another before nor would again.

 

At one point, fortunately very close to the makeshift home they’d constructed, Jyn went a bit too weak in her good knee and collapsed under the pressure of too much weight on her still-healing leg. She collapsed backwards into the sand, and Cassian, having been leaning too far into her orbit, fell right along with and landed on top.

 

“Oof.” Jyn couldn’t help the sound escaping her lips.

 

“Are you okay?” Cassian asked, rolling as much as he could to avoid putting weight on Jyn’s bad leg. He looked down in concern, but the splint was still in one piece.

 

“Yes,” Jyn replied, her voice scorching Cassian’s ears with its unexpected low and sultry tone. He didn’t have much time to think about how that one word was affecting him before Jyn’s hands reached up to pull his face back down to hers.

 

How it had taken them this long to get to this place astounded both parties. Jyn and Cassian both knew that they had had to take their time to physically recover before anything like this could happen, and they still weren’t entirely back up to fighting shape, but they were close enough to not care anymore.

 

And they needed this, Jyn thought to herself as her lips trailed from Cassian’s lips to his cheek to his ear to the back of his head as she clutched him tightly against her. Despite how aloof they’d both been from another even at the start of their time together, the magnetism that drew them together was a comforting and much needed feeling, and it was a thing that resonated through most of their time together. Jyn remembered Cassian dragging her away from her father’s body. Even in that horrible circumstance, his closeness made her feel just a bit better. When they were in the middle of the attack in Jedha City, the way he pulled her to him and they grappled with each other as they moved through the fighting, it made it all feel possible to keep surviving.

 

And now, with Cassian’s hands practically tearing a hole at the base of her back, as he tried to pull her closer to him, as if the only way they’d keep breathing would be if their bodies were fully merged with one another, sinking into each other and oblivion, Jyn felt more comfort than she’d known since before her mother died and her father was taken from her.

 

“Help me get this thing off,” Jyn whispered in Cassian’s ear as his kisses trailed down her collarbone. He pulled away, and she gestured towards the splint on her leg. At Cassian’s mouth opening, she interjected, “I'll be fine.”

 

With a kiss to her lips, Cassian turned his attention with hers down to undoing the straps she’d built to keep her leg in the splint. Eventually, her hands fell away to instead tousle his hair as each strap that Cassian undid was accompanied by a delicate kiss on the bare flesh beneath. It was strange to Jyn how such a sweet and chaste act could arouse her so intently.

 

But what it was that drew her to Cassian and made her want him so much wasn’t just that she found him sexually attractive but also that she felt this kind of tender connection to him. The way he had said to her, “Your father would be proud” in the moment they thought their existences would end, the way he showed how he already knew her so thoroughly and how he cared for her survival and her soul… that was what made her want him. That’s what made her love him.

 

Cassian pulled the makeshift splint away from Jyn’s (rather thin post-injury) left leg, and he tossed it closer to their camp. Jyn adjusted herself so that her left leg was aside and Cassian could once again lean in to embrace her.

 

He fervently placed kiss after kiss on her arms as they continued to reach around his head and grasp his hair. His own hands had turned their attention to his tunic, and he hastily removed it and threw that too aside, exposing his mostly-healed but still heavily bruised ribs. Jyn had observed his chest many times as she had helped him place fresh bandages to hold and constrict his chest most days until recently, and she observed the same features she came to know well: the swath of thin curls across his chest, the line that traveled from his navel towards his trousers, the well-defined muscles beneath the purple bruising. Jyn turned her hands’ attention to feeling all around Cassian’s torso, gingerly lining his bruises, caressing his patches of hair, running her hands down past his navel, reaching for his belt buckle, and holding there as she tugged him towards her and closed the gap he’d made by removing his shirt.

 

It was Cassian’s turn to groan, “Oof,” as his chest pressed against Jyn’s, his weight matching against hers, her breaths pushing his chest up and down in a matching rhythm.

 

“Is this okay?” Jyn took a moment to pause, pulling her lips away from the earlobe she'd been tugging at. She could feel Cassian pressing against her, knew his body wanted this much as hers did, but they had silently made decisions not to engage in this kind of behavior thus far, and Jyn needed to know that this was exactly what they both wanted.

 

“Definitely.” Cassian grinned at her, and Jyn felt like she was melting from the smile that exploded across her own face. Jyn leaned up to kiss Cassian, and she pulled her hands back to begin undoing her own tunic.

 

Cassian’s hands joined her, but he was no help there, so instead his hands roamed around her waist and grabbed at her behind, pulling her groin up towards him. Jyn leaned back onto her neck and the back of her head, unable to stop herself moaning from the exuberant feeling she had as she felt her groin collide with his, albeit with several layers of clothing still between them. She felt herself grinding into him, encouraging his erection. Her hands finished unbuttoning the top of her commandeered Imperial tunic, and she used one of Cassian’s fervent pulls of her lower body towards his to balance herself as she pulled her tunic off over the top of her head, revealing the rather utilitarian undergarments most Imperial officers (and Cassian and Jyn) made do with. It was another brief moment before the last piece of fabric on Jyn’s torso was removed, revealing her upper body to Cassian, some pieces for the first time.

 

Cassian leaned back a slight ways to take in Jyn’s naked torso. She felt a bit cold in the evening Scarif breeze, which was reflected in the way her nipples perked up and her breasts rippled slightly as the wind blew across her chest. Goosebumps rose across her torso and stomach from the chill, and her fair body hair stood on end. She watched Cassian drink in her appearance, soaking up every inch of her as if he may never have the chance again. Jyn felt heat come to her face; she wasn’t embarrassed, but put on the spot like this, with Cassian’s face so reverent in the way he looked at her, it made her feel like this was all too good to be true.

 

The moment of pure admiration passed, and soon enough Jyn’s chest was pressed up against Cassian’s, and she could feel his heart beating against her chest much as she was sure he felt the same. His mouth worked its way along her neck, sucking and biting to Jyn’s vocal satisfaction. She returned the favor by rubbing her hands along his lower back, rolling her fingers beneath his belt, scratching at the flesh beneath.  
  
It occurred to Cassian at that moment that, though the sand beneath them was soft, it might not be the ideal surface upon which to proceed with their current objective. With a brief parting kiss to Jyn’s lips, he broke away momentarily, stumbled punch drunk to their nearby campsite, and dragged a blanket they’d retrieved from one of their scavenging runs back to Jyn, who was watching her companion with curiosity and then understanding.  
  
Wordlessly, Cassian lay the blanket down beside Jyn, and she scooted herself over onto it, her left leg dragging only slightly. The practical now covered, the imminent lovers continued on. Now that Jyn was situated on the blanket, Cassian began kissing her sternum before trailing down to her navel and then to where her belt held her half-legged trousers. He undid her belt swiftly, and she shimmied to help him remove them entirely from her body, a natural progression from the excited squirming she’d been performing moments ago as she’d felt a thrilling blaze all throughout her body each time Cassian’s lips moved lower and lower.

 

After a kick of her undergarments and boots, Jyn was completely naked before Cassian. His lips resumed where they had left off at her hip, and she felt herself aching and growing wet in anticipation for where he would venture next.

 

Jyn moaned her approval as Cassian’s mouth brushed against the lips of her vulva, his tongue poking her clitoris, gently nudging her along. She didn’t want to scream out, afraid of being too loud despite knowing that the island’s other current inhabitants would have to be listening awfully closely to hear any noise they two were making on the other side of the island. This repression, however, only seemed to egg Cassian on, and he gripped Jyn’s right leg, holding her by the thigh as he buried his face in her groin, licking at her more fervently, thrusting his tongue now into her opening, and bringing his other hand to rub alongside his mouth’s handiwork.  
  
Jyn grabbed at Cassian’s hair, holding him there, brushing her fingers through with such satisfaction as she felt herself cresting towards orgasm. Her back lifted, and her head sunk into the soft ground beneath them, just as she couldn’t help herself from crying out. She felt herself come, and tighten, and relax, and then she saw Cassian’s face before her once again, mouth glistening, kissing her full on the lips, and they shared his success in several more kisses before Jyn made her next move.

 

Now she was undoing his belt and pulling off his slacks, and he was kicking off his boots. They switched positions, Cassian lying naked beneath Jyn, and she mimicked the way in which he had trailed his mouth down her body, but instead of kisses, she took small bites, which she could immediately tell Cassian lived for. She was entranced with the way he moaned as she pulled at small bits of flesh, though careful to avoid his healing ribs. Her hands trailed behind her head, running gently down after her more brutal nips to soothe her lover’s skin. She could feel goosebumps rising that she knew weren’t from the cold so much as his excitement at her actions.

 

She reached the proof of his excitement, his fully erect penis. At first, her fingers gingerly slid along the length before her, and she could hear Cassian’s moaning intensify. Encouraged, she began gripping him more forcefully, running her hands up and down him firmly but slowly enough to get him started, and she could see the resulting beads of liquid appearing at his tip. She licked at them, and then began using her tongue as well as her hands to handle his girth, caressing him with an appropriate amount of force, feeling his hands reach down to the sides of her face, holding her as she bobbed in and out.

Before he could reach his peak, however, he gently pulled her face off of him. The pair flipped their positions once again, and Cassian used this position to slide himself into Jyn’s still slick opening. One of her hands was in his, held near to her face down on the blanket. The other hand assisted with inserting his length into her body, guiding him into just the right position. Once he was inside of her, his hand reached behind to hold her from below, and she placed hers on his hips.

 

As Cassian began to move his hips, Jyn met him, rising as he pushed down, and falling ever so slightly as he rolled up. Their hot breath faded into each other’s faces as they struggled to meet their lips together as their bodies moved in rhythm. They moved together, flowing and ebbing much like the waves only some meters away from them. Their moans and heavy breaths occasionally matched in timing with the waves, and the pair of lovers grinned at each other as they progressed, basking in their connection. It was neither arduous work nor a final culmination, but an exciting development in their relationship. They’d somehow always been in synch, it felt, and the way their bodies rolled together was the most natural thing.

 

Having come only some moments ago, Jyn could feel her body crying out in pleasure once again, and she knew from the way Cassian was grunting and how his pace was increasing that he was approaching his own climax as well. They came hardly a second apart, each exerting a cry of delight as their bodies emptied into one another, spending all their resources claiming the other for their own. Even after they had done, Cassian didn’t remove himself from Jyn, instead sinking gently down onto her body as she held her legs behind his, allowing this physical connection to last post-coitus as it was more than orgasm that they were sharing, but the closeness that they had both craved for their lived and that they only found with each other.

 

“I love you,” came Cassian’s voice, husky and low, his brown eyes staring right into her green.

 

He didn’t need to say it; it was ridiculous that they loved each other, but of course they did. After everything they had shared, even in this short of a time, love was the only word that could possibly describe their bond.

 

Jyn raised her face to kiss the man still inside of her as deeply as she could. “And I love you.”


	7. Chapter Seven

Aside from traversing this new territory with one another, Jyn and Cassian had other changes in their circumstances to deal with. After several minutes of blissful euphoria and ignorance of all but one another, the other aspects of their reality set in, and priorities had to shift.

Pleasantly exhausted, Jyn accepted, after some debate, that she would rest first while Cassian sat watch. They didn’t know precisely what hours the crew of the _Swiftfoot_ kept, so it was important that one of them was awake and alert at all hours for now.

Cassian spent his time on watch slowly dressing himself back up as the night grew cooler and cooler. Jyn slept peacefully nearby, and Cassian was sure to cover her with the other blankets they’d scavenged from torn apart cargo decks and storage lockers tossed far from any of their original surroundings.

They’d agreed that he would wake her in five hours time, and then she’d take over through to the morning. Watching her sleep, Cassian had a hard time imagining waking her in a few short hours, though. Her hair was messily thrown all about her face, and her mouth was open ever so slightly as she breathed deeply in her unconscious state. It took all his energy not to reach down and stroke her soft, beautiful hair, knowing that he could accidentally wake her.

Cassian instead busied himself by making their campsite seem like less of a campsite. He didn’t want the scavenger crew to discover where the pair of rogues had been living for the past few weeks, certainly not if Cassian and Jyn didn’t want them to at least. Rather, Cassian hoped that the scavengers would never know that they’d shared the island with anyone else, and, hopefully, that they’d acquired some stowaways on their journey to wherever they were headed next.

For one, it was easy to assume that the scavengers wouldn’t be staying more than a few days. If they managed to find anything with their explosives plan, it was unlikely that it would take more time than that to dig through any surviving things of interest. If Cassian and Jyn were more reckless, they might consider digging into whatever it is that the scavengers might find, but they’d already ideally transmitted the one particular jackpot they’d been on the planet for in the first place.

With the assumption that the scavengers weren’t long for this world, it made it easier for Cassian to decide what implements were unnecessary to keep around the campsite. Now that they’d want to be on the move more too, it was more important to have the necessities packed up for quick transport. They didn’t know how long the scavengers would be in space before their next dock, so having food and water ready for stowing away was more important anyway.

Several no longer necessary implements could be scattered about and hidden in plain sight or in uninteresting places near the campsite: the pipe Jyn had used as a crutch, most of the additional clothing they’d scraped together from various kits and torn or made use of in alternative ways, some of the less immediately useful medicine. The things that they wouldn’t transport but could still use should be easily hidden, Cassian decided, and he spent the next few hours coming up with crafty ways to prevent discovery of either himself or Jyn through observation of their current living vicinity.

It was deep into the night by the time Cassian’s five hours of watch were up, and he’d long since finished his work naturalizing the campsite as much as he could. He’d spent the last hour or so with his ears wide open for any intruders but his eyes focused on the woman sleeping nearby. While Cassian had taken the time to dress himself back up, Jyn had taken no such action before falling asleep, and the starlight highlighted her bare shoulders peeking out from under the blankets Cassian had covered her in. Exhaustion either hadn’t set in yet or had long since passed; thus, Cassian made an impromptu decision to refuse the original terms and let Jyn rest for another hour or two before he would wake her.

Almost as if her body had set its own alarm, however, Jyn stirred only minutes after her shift was supposed to begin, and she awoke, sitting up so that the blankets fell from her upper body, and the starlight that had illuminated her shoulders now illuminated her entire chest, from her navel to her sternum.

“You were supposed to wake me,” she said, followed by a large yawn and the stretch of her arms above her head.

“I should have known you’d never let me let you sleep too long,” Cassian conceded with a grin.

Jyn returned his smile and lowered her arms, shamelessly allowing her lover to once again appreciate her naked physical form. Cassian thought to himself just how unfair it was that he was able to see such beauty before him. The way her eyes met his, intense and yet relaxed, and the way he vividly remembered how her chest had pressed against his, her flesh against his… he felt like he was home for the first time in his entire life.

Seeing her sitting there, all Cassian wanted to do was grab her and kiss her and make love to her all over again. His better judgment prevailed in the moment, though, as he knew that he needed his rest, and that she needed her energy to keep watch while he slept.

Cassian settled for kissing her long and deep. His hands cupped her face as he leaned down, and hers reached up to his chin as she sat below. It was a tender way of saying “good morning” when it wasn’t even morning at all.

As Jyn stretched herself out from the curled position she’d taken while sleeping, Cassian hunted down the articles of clothing they’d discarded from her body hours ago. Along with her splint, he gathered the items up and deposited them in her arms as she stood and continued stretching to prepare for her turn at watch.

“Nothing to report?” she asked, already knowing the answer, busying herself with pulling on her tunic and trousers.

Cassian shook his head. He moved as if to help her tie up the splint, but she shooed him away with a wave of her hand, and Cassian instead stood aside, arms folded in his chest, grin on his face, as he watched Jyn insist on her constant – though well-deserved – independence.

“Let’s hope it stays that way.” Jyn’s splint was fully and properly done. She ambled herself over to where Cassian had spent most of his time on watch sitting (a piece of a ship that looked like part of the loading ramp and somehow made an adequate makeshift chair). “Now get yourself that sleep.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied with a small smile and a hearty nod. Before he could leave her be, though, she grabbed him around the waist and pulled him in for another parting kiss. It was gentle and sweet, their lips softly pressed against one another’s for a brief few moments of unmoving time.

Once they parted, Cassian and Jyn’s eyes followed one another still as she sat on the lookout perch and he lay down and almost immediately fell asleep.

The following five hours also went by with no event. Jyn didn’t have much to do, but she was used to having to sit around with nothing to do, so she didn’t mind. Her ears stayed attentive to any sounds that might appear aside from the soft flow of the waves or Cassian’s light inhalations and exhalations. Her eyes roamed around the area, taking in the adjusted surroundings – she had almost immediately noticed upon waking that Cassian had made adjustments to their campsite, and she approved of his attention to making their appearance on the island scarce. She watched Cassian’s chest rise and fall as he slept, thinking selfishly to herself how long she would have to wait until she could feel it against her own once again. She watched the starlit debris-filled beach around them, noting how little anything moved aside from when a brief breeze might gust and shift the upper layer of sand a few centimeters.

All in all, it was blissfully dull. After several days of physical and emotional distress, which had followed years of other kinds of physical and emotional duress, Jyn felt surprisingly unburdened while on guard that night on Scarif. She wasn’t feeling haunted by the ghosts of the dead and her past like she had been most nights since the attack. Her body didn’t ache with reminders of past mistakes or shaky victories. Instead, she felt focused; there was a simple mission at hand, and the current task was easily achievable. Finally, Jyn had something to think about other than terrors and horrors.

Her mind wasn’t necessarily content with this path, however, and did indeed try to remind Jyn of all that she had suffered. Her father, her friends, Saw… but whenever these thoughts attempted to suffocate her, Jyn felt Cassian pulling her along on Jedha, off the landing pad on Eadu, clutching her as the Death Star blast hit the waters of Scarif. He’d been there through it all, it seemed, and he was her anchor holding her from drifting away into despair right now.

Five hours went by slowly, but eventually the sun did cross Scarif’s horizon, morning was summoned, and the faint sound of the _Swiftfoot_ ’s crew disembarking their ship woke Jyn from her stupor and Cassian from his sleep. Their eyes met, and the rogues shared a nod as they understood that another day with a chance for escape from this idyllic dystopian world had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> going to see rogue one again tomorrow so hopefully I can be more emotionally devastated/inspired (atm all the chapters I've finished have been posted now oh no!)


	8. Chapter Eight

“This was a waste of our goddamn time.”

“Not entirely; we did find a few seemingly intact holotapes. We just need to get them and Xell to his guy on Nar Shaddaa, and there’s a pretty good chance at least one of them will live to tell some good intel on the Empire.”

“That’s assuming Xell’s guy delivers, unlike last time when he _mysteriously_ lost our stuff.” A short pause. “I don’t trust that fucker.”

The sound of a Wookiee speaking Shyriiwook echoed against large pieces of broken ships and fallen structures.

“See? Wassafer thinks trusting Xell’s guy is a shitty idea too. We need a new decoder.”

There was a brief silence, then a deep sigh. “We need to go to Nar Shaddaa either way; you’re not going to find a decent tech decoder who doesn’t mind pissing off the Empire anywhere else.”

Another sigh. “ _But_ I’ll talk to Saeed about this. Don’t mention anything to Xell, or anyone else for that matter. Keep your big mouth shut, Frapp. I mean it.”

“My lips are sealed, Frieye.”

It had been four days since the _Swiftfoot_ had landed on Scarif, and the crew’s mission to dig through the debris from the Imperial base had gone fairly smoothly for the scavengers. It was underwhelming, which they should have expected based on the condition of the base when they arrived, but it was still a bit of a disappointment regardless. It had been a while since the crew had made a good score, and this frustration was encouraging the already existent tensions that existed between the crew.

Jyn and Cassian had successfully kept their distance over those days, but they remained nearby while the crew had conducted their excavations. Their own tension had cooled off a bit after consummating their relationship the first night the _Swiftfoot_ had arrived, but they had their own tension to contend with as well that continued to build as the days went by as well. After a rather quiet first night from the _Swiftfoot_ crew, Jyn and Cassian had realized they’d been lucky; someone on the crew had suggested that Imperial forces could choose to return any time (though they didn’t suspect at all that anyone remained on the planet). A regular watch had taken place throughout the following three nights, and Jyn and Cassian had opted to stay as quiet as possible to avoid detection.

Now, it seemed their quiet would pay off, though they’d have to continue near-mute existences if they successfully smuggled themselves onto the scavenging ship before its inevitable departure.

The conversation they’d overheard between the three crewmembers took place closer to the ruins of the Citadel (surprisingly, Wassafer’s demolitions hadn’t ruined it further but rather managed to find new openings with astonishing dexterity; part of Cassian – the part that was so used to being a rebel – thought that between his distaste for the former Imperial on his crew and these skills, Wassafer would be a prime target for recruitment into the cause). Already, the rest of the crew had moved the aforementioned holotapes and some other miscellaneous and potentially useful supplies and parts back to their ship. From the sound of things, Saeed and his crew were likely to leave before nightfall.

“I get that we’re all tired; we’ve hardly slept, and we don’t have much food. But I don’t want to sit around waiting for the Empire to decide they should check back in on their old base,” Saeed had said to his first mate earlier.

Jyn had felt a sense of unease over the past few days over how the crew of the _Swiftfoot_ seemed like a powder keg about to explode. She knew that there wasn’t a better option than them, though, which is why she kept those doubts to herself. She guessed Cassian had the same doubts from the way his brow would furrow ever so slightly when he’d hear one of countless terse exchanges between the scavengers. He too must have known they had no choice, though, because he didn’t say anything either.

At night, instead of returning to their former campsite, Jyn and Cassian had chosen to keep watch while the other slept much closer to the _Swiftfoot_ and her crew. It was important that they got better acquainted with the ship if they were going to smuggle themselves aboard, after all.

The real difficulty was upcoming, however – actually getting aboard, especially while the rest of the crew was awake. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a chance to board any other time, as there was always a conscious member of the crew keeping watch. Then again, slipping by one likely sleepy scavenger was easier than the idea of slipping by more than half a dozen.

If only they were leaving in the morning… but Saeed was smart to want to leave more quickly. He didn’t realize he was inconveniencing a couple of potential stowaways.

Regardless of how they would do it, Jyn and Cassian couldn’t stowaway onto a ship they weren’t near, so they stealthily followed Frapp, Wassafer, and Fierye back to the _Swiftfoot_ from a safe distance. It was an uneventful and short trip. Now that Frapp had gotten his opinion out, it seemed neither he nor his crewmates cared to converse further.

Once back at the ship, though, another crewmember seemed eager to speak up.

“Is it true that we’re not going to Gus?”

Xell was standing several meters away from the open loading ramp of the _Swiftfoot_ , his arms crossed and staring directly at Fierye as he, Frapp, and Wassafer arrived back at the ship. Xell was a rather towering presence, and despite the distance between himself and the ship, it was clear that he blocked the path his crewmates wanted to take.

“Where the fuck did you hear that?” Frapp interjected, his eyes bugging out in astonishment.

“None of us is authorized to make that decision,” Fierye cut in, putting his hands up defensively. “Have you talked to Saeed about this?”

“He’s being diplomatic,” Xell replied, his voice even and measured.

Wassafer called out to the ship, and in response, Saeed came out, followed by Harleuk and Van not far behind. They each half-jogged to join the gathering taking place some fifty meters from their metal and plasteel home. Jyn and Cassian were still some few dozen meters away themselves, not anywhere near the semi-stable portion of beach the _Swiftfoot_ used as her landing pad, but hidden amongst the fallen trees and bits of debris that surrounded her.

“What is all this about?”

“Xell’s finally gone off the bloody deep end!” Frapp threw his hands in the air.

“Do you mind?” Harleuk threw Frapp a dirty look, and Frapp responded with a rude gesture.

“I am going to say this one more time.” Saeed spoke more quietly than most of the rest – save Xell – but his voice captured everyone’s attention. “What is all this about?”

“You don’t trust me,” Xell said, turning to face Saeed rather than Frapp or Fierye as he had been a moment ago.

“If I didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be on my crew,” Saeed said plainly.

“I’ve vouched for Gus.”

“I still intend to go to Gus with these holodisks.”

“Why the fuck you would…”

“Frapp. I can find a new pilot if you can’t get along with this crew,” Saeed interrupted, a stern look thrown toward the Twi’lek.

Wassafer growled.

“I don’t _want_ to replace anyone, Wassafer,” Saeed turned his stern face toward the Wookiee, “but I also need a crew that can work together effectively. Right now, that seems like it might not be the case.”

As this conversation took place, everyone’s attention shifted farther and farther away from the loading ramp of the _Swiftfoot_. Wassafer, Fierye, and Frapp were still nearly eighty meters away from the ship, and the rest of the crew had moved closer and closer to them as the debate went on.

For Jyn and Cassian, the opportunity was as present as it ever would be.

From their current hiding spot to the west of the ship, they moved quickly and quietly towards the loading ramp. Jyn was slower with her splint, but her slowness encouraged Cassian to keep a sharp eye on the events unfolding outside of the ship.

Fortunately – or perhaps, _unfortunately_ – as Jyn and Cassian emerged from the brush, Wassafer took a swing at Xell. Cassian paid attention long enough to see that the Wookiee had missed the Zabrak, but he tore his eyes away so as to focus instead on getting himself and Jyn aboard the _Swiftfoot_.

Their commandeered boots gently pushed against the plasteel surface of the loading ramp as they rushed themselves up and into the ship. They could hear a few shouts coming from the outside, but they ignored the content as they made their way into the cargo bay of the ship.

Knowing that this was a crew of scavengers – and likely smugglers too – it was incredibly likely that there would be several false panels and hidden containers in the cargo bay. Jyn and Cassian just had to be lucky enough to find one big enough for the both of them that didn’t already have contents the crew would be checking after.

After a minute of hurrying around the cargo bay, making a little more noise than they’d have preferred to (but with the circumstances outside being what they were, it didn’t seem likely to be an issue), Jyn was the one to find a rather large false panel that revealed a space large enough that it could likely fit about five people, six or seven if they were okay with a tight squeeze. Neither Jyn nor Cassian liked the implication of a space of that size on a smuggling ship, but they didn’t have to like this ship or its crew; they simply needed to use it to get anywhere but the sunny tomb of Scarif.

Jyn got into the space first and immediately sat down on an overturned bucket in the space; her leg was sore from rushing on it in its splint. Cassian followed her and placed the panel back where they’d found it. He stood beside her in the darkness, his head brushing the low ceiling of the space. Her hand reached for his, and he grasped her back tightly, both breathing the slightest bit more heavily than normal.

Several minutes passed. Eventually, the sounds of the rest of the ship’s inhabitants boarding echoed into the mostly empty cargo hold. Whatever conflict had taken place on the ground seemed to have ended; whatever conversation happening outside was muffled, but it sounded less antagonistic and more casual than anything Jyn or Cassian had heard for the past few days since the _Swiftfoot_ crew had arrived on Scarif in the first place.

Moments later, after the loading ramp was closed and as the engines started up, Jyn felt a sigh escape from between her lips as they formed into a satisfied smile. They were finally leaving. Scarif… it was over at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long for this update; I've actually had this chapter written for a while, but I didn't want to have nothing more before I posted it. That said, I don't have another complete chapter under my belt yet, so ~who knows~ how long it'll be until the next upload (genuine question; I certainly don't know). I also don't know exactly how long this will go on for. I have some rather grandiose ideas, but I also don't want to be overly ambitious. I think a natural stopping point will come up eventually, and we'll get to that when we get to it. For now, thanks everyone for all the kudos and patience and support. I'm really glad we can all come together for these doomed characters and some wishful thinking. <3


	9. Chapter Nine

The false room in the cargo bay was obviously for smuggling people. Though the intent was unclear, the typical cargo was obvious. If the size wasn’t enough of an indication, the purpose of the bucket became discernibly clear after a short time, and a small footlocker in the space provided a very dim lantern and a couple raggedy blankets for whatever inhabitants the room held.

 

Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor, as the current inhabitants, were soon huddled together under both blankets as well as another small blanket they’d had in their own packs, combating the cold of space travel in the poorly insulated cargo bay.

 

They’d both scavenged working chrometers from their time on Scarif, so they were able to keep track of the length of time since their departure. They’d also heard of their next destination – Nar Shaddaa – from the _Swiftfoot_ ’s crew, and that it wouldn’t take more than three days to travel there from their point of origin. Neither Jyn nor Cassian had much water or many provisions left, but their foraged goods would be enough. Their primary concern was to avoid discovery by the other inhabitants of the ship, which meant remaining quiet and listening carefully to any visitors to the cargo hold.

 

The first two days went by smoothly. They were still immensely exhausted, especially after spending the past few days focusing on a task other than healing their still recovering bodies, so Jyn and Cassian mostly slept. Since neither had to keep close watch, they didn’t even have to take turns or abruptly end sleep based on any cycle of guard duty.

 

The lantern they’d discovered hummed softly when it was on, so they kept it off (just to be safe) most of the time, trying to focus on their sense of touch and muscle memory instead. This arrangement made for some unintentionally intimate moments, where one of the pair would reach out to the other to take a water canteen or rations packet, and unintentionally brush against a face, neck, arm, or chest. Their bodies unintentionally knocked against one another at the knee or hip, and both Jyn and Cassian would be struck with the memory of their sexual encounter, and their bodies would scream for a repeat.

 

All it took was a few moments to remember where they were to stall these urges, however. After all, they were stuffed into a space where a bucket substituted any refresher, a couple raggedy blankets had likely covered people who, at worst, were sold into slavery, and there was an unpleasant smell that was impossible to get used to even when it flowed through their nostrils non-stop.

 

For both Jyn and Cassian, though, these kinds of environments were not entirely unknown. They’d both spent time in prisons, hidey-holes, and all sorts of areas not fit to be actual living spaces. For all the negatives of this space, it was not unfamiliar to the two rogue stowaways.

 

The crew of the _Swiftfoot_ had avoided the cargo bay. Whatever was happening elsewhere on the ship, Jyn and Cassian were completely oblivious. They didn’t dare to try to leave their hidden compartment, and nothing was coming close enough to them to think they would be discovered. Any conversation was happening far away enough to not even hear a rumbling, and the only sounds that permeated the thin layer of metal that separated Jyn and Cassian from the rest of the ship were mechanical in nature. After two days, perhaps it was safe to speak more than two syllables.

 

“Did you ever feel like you had a home?”

 

Jyn’s whispered question brushed against Cassian’s face and ears as they lay face to face in complete darkness, buried under their small pile of blankets, holding each other for the additional bodily heat they could provide to each other. Space travel was always a bit cold, but this was certainly one of the coldest sleeping quarters either had experienced in space.

 

“The Alliance was home.” Cassian paused and recognized how unconvinced he was in that answer. “I wasn’t sure exactly what home was, I think. Even before… it didn’t feel like home, even with…” he trailed off.

 

He’d only mentioned his parents before in brief passing. It was odd that he felt hesitant now. It wasn’t that he was scared to share anything of him with Jyn, but just that he didn’t know how to share this part of him with anyone. She knew where his mind went though.

 

“What were their names?”

 

“Jerett. Willa.” Cassian hadn’t said either in a long time, even as quietly as he was saying their names now. “I don’t remember them very well. She died first, I think, or at least I never saw her again by the time I was four. He died fighting. Then I started fighting.”

 

Jyn couldn’t see Cassian in front of her, but she could sense that she was pulling something out of him, something that was buried deep. She lifted her left hand to his face and held it against his cheek. He allowed his face to lean into her palm.

 

“I think home was wherever my parents were,” Jyn said, her voice quiet but clear. “They were unhappy with the Empire and anxious on the farm, and neither felt right to me… but I did feel safer all those years… somehow. I knew things were wrong, but I don’t know; I think they were my home.”

 

“Did that feeling end?” He knew her family story; it’s what had brought them together in the first place, her connection to Galen Erso. And he’d seen the way she held his body when he died, even after all those years apart, even after he’d left her. He already knew the answer, but he could tell she needed to get there.

 

“I thought it had. I was so angry for so long. I was angry with my mother for fighting back so foolishly. I was angry with my father for surrendering and giving in. But then, hearing him again, then seeing him again… I understood why they both did what they did.”

 

“I was angry too,” Cassian whispered back. His left hand held Jyn’s right, and he caressed it with his fingers. “I felt abandoned. I was angry that they would die for a cause but not live for me. So I did what they did, but it never brought me the peace I wanted it to. I couldn’t find what I thought they must have found.”

 

“When I would go on missions with Saw, I thought I’d be okay dying because I’d be giving myself up for the right thing. At least that’s what I told myself. I was really okay because then I wouldn’t have to try anymore. But then I kept living.”

 

“Dying always seemed like it’d be easier,” Cassian agreed. “I only wanted to live because I thought I’d find a better way to die.”

 

Jyn’s left hand traveled up Cassian’s face to brush his hair from his eyes as she leaned forward ever so slightly to kiss Cassian gently on his forehead. “I’m not sure you’ll find anything better than what we survived.”

 

“I think there might be another reason to live now,” he hummed with a touch of humor in his voice to offset just how seriously he actually felt. Cassian reached his hands up to Jyn’s face, and pulled her lips towards his in the darkness. He kissed her firmly, almost forcefully, and he felt her body react by pressing against him in their already close quarters.  
  
Jyn felt heat shoot through her as she melted into Cassian, her legs intertwining with his, her arms reaching around his waist, and her hands held together at the small of his back. Cassian’s hands flowed into her hair, and his tongue pressed itself into her eager mouth, their lips brushing against one another, grabbing with a quiet hunger for more intimacy.

 

Jyn’s clasped hands dug into Cassian’s back, pulling him as close to her as she could. When that wasn’t enough, she used her thighs to tug at his, and she could feel him stirring against her. Cassian’s hands brushed down Jyn’s neck, her collarbone, and then at the collar of her tunic. He deftly undid the buttons. Beneath the tepid warmth of layers of fabric, his hands provided opportune warmth to Jyn’s bare chest. He caressed her breasts, her ribs, her waist.

 

She moaned softly into his mouth, and to devour the sound of it and his own heavy breathing, Cassian applied further force to the kiss. This only stirred Jyn into further action, and she pulled one of her hands away from his back and back towards her own torso. She grabbed one of Cassian’s hands and guided it down to her belt. He understood, and undid her belt and reached in beneath her trousers and underwear.

 

Jyn stifled any audible reaction by biting down on Cassian’s lower lip. She could feel him wince, and quickly knew she had bit too hard by the taste of blood. Before she could apologize, however, Cassian seemed to encourage this rougher action by, instead of any gentle action, getting a strong grip on Jyn’s groin and yanking it upwards and towards his own.

 

A small gasp erupted from Jyn’s lips, but so that Cassian wouldn’t get the wrong idea, she followed it up with a thrust of her tongue and her free hands grabbing at his behind in fervent approval.

 

Cassian began rubbing his hand brusquely against all the flesh he could find in her nether regions, and he was rewarded with a wave of dampness emitting from within Jyn’s vagina.

 

Jyn’s lips broke away from Cassian’s for a moment to reach around to his ear, biting at the lobe before purring, barely audibly, “Fair’s fair,” as her own hands worked to undo his belt and trousers. She used a firm grip on his arising penis, encouraging its destination to a horizontal position.

 

As she did, Cassian broke any sound by biting into Jyn’s neck, his teeth gnawing at patches of skin, his lips sucking in so as to avoid expelling out noise. His hand responded by breaking its pattern and powerfully thrusting three fingers into the smooth opening he’d been provoking the past few minutes.

 

Unable to resist, Jyn let loose a whimper of pleasure; fortunately, her face was nestled in Cassian’s neck. He felt the vibrations of her whimper, and they encouraged him to continue pushing again and again while his thumb massaged her clitoris, challenging her ability to focus on her own attempts to please Cassian.

 

To both of their delight, however, her focus remained intact enough for her forceful grip as she ran her hand back and forth along his length, alternating in speed, rubbing quickly for several seconds, and then torturously slowing down. Cassian loved it though; each adjustment made him long for the other more, and he continued to bite and taste Jyn’s neck as she continued, right up until he couldn’t hold off anymore, and he ejaculated into her hand and shoved his face into her neck to stifle the groan that he emitted.

 

She wasn’t done yet, though, and once Cassian’s orgasm passed, he focused his energies entirely on the woman before him, now using both hands to pull and prod with as much dexterity as he could and the perfect amount of force. It wasn’t long before Jyn too peaked, and she muffled her shout of his name into his neck, her hands wet with his essence and his wet with hers.

 

Reality set in alarmingly quickly, though they remained entangled in each other’s bodies, not pulling away at all as they remembered where they were amidst their passion and what priorities they must focus on now.

 

Regardless, their circumstances hadn’t yet changed, and Cassian felt no impracticality or shame in pulling Jyn in for a deep kiss in their dark, temporary self-imposed prison. After all, there was nothing to hide from each other or anyone else for any matter in such a space as the one they currently shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I both acknowledge that this is kinda disgusting but also that too fucking bad this is a smut fic at its core. :)))))


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